Effects of the common cold on subjective alertness, reaction time and eye movements

Smith, Andrew Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8805-8028, Rich, N., Sturgess, W., Brice, C., Collison, C., Bailey, J., Wilson, S. and Nutt, D. 1999. Effects of the common cold on subjective alertness, reaction time and eye movements. Journal of Psychophysiology 13 (3) , pp. 145-151. 10.1027//0269-8803.13.3.145

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Abstract

The present study examined whether volunteers with common colds showed impairments in objective and subjective indicators of alertness. All the volunteers (N = 81) were tested when healthy to provide baseline data for mood, simple and choice reaction time tasks, and an anti-saccadic eye movement task. When subjects developed a cold (N = 17) they returned to the laboratory and repeated the procedure. Volunteers (N = 64) who remained healthy over a 10-week period were recalled as controls. The results showed that those with colds felt significantly less alert and had significantly slower simple and choice reaction times and eye movements. This extends earlier research and shows that electrophysiological measures may also be of use in assessing the behavioral changes induced by upper respiratory tract illnesses.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
ISSN:	0269-8803
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2022 08:49
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/34485

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